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Full catalog/amsua15sp
amsua15sp·v1·dataset

Microwave readings of the atmosphere (NOAA-15)

ADVANCED MICROWAVE SOUNDING UNIT-A (AMSU-A) SWATH FROM NOAA-15
land NASA GHRC_DAAC Level 2 HDF-EOS4netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Raw microwave readings across 15 channels that the AMSU-A instrument uses to sense temperature and moisture through the atmosphere, from the surface up to about 45 km, along with the location and time of each reading.

How it's made. Collected by the AMSU-A microwave radiometer aboard NOAA-15, a polar-orbiting weather satellite, and stored as daily swath files.

How & where you'd use it. A foundational input for profiling atmospheric temperature and humidity; mostly used by weather and climate scientists to build vertical atmospheric profiles rather than read directly.

What's measured

Spectral/Engineering › Microwave › Brightness TemperatureAtmosphere › Atmospheric Temperature › Upper Air Temperature › Vertical ProfilesAtmosphere › Atmospheric Water Vapor › Water Vapor Profiles

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1998-08-03 → ongoing
  • Measured byNOAA-15 (AMSU-A)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS4, netCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

AMSU-A, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, is a 15-channel passive microwave radiometer used to profile atmospheric temperature and moisture from the earth's surface to ~45 km (3 millibars). All orbits beginning in the day (00:00:00 - 23:59:59 UTC) are stored in one daily HDF-EOS file. Each file contains 15 (channel) arrays, as well as corresponding latitude, longitude, and time. AMSU flies on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar orbiting spacecraft as part of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). NOAA-15 was the first spacecraft to fly AMSU. Launched on 13 May 1998, NOAA-15 is in a sun synchronous near polar orbit.

Get the data

amsua15sp_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="amsua15sp",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from GHRC_DAAC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.